


sky turns to fire against a telephone wire

by singmyheart



Category: Hamilton - Miranda (Broadway Cast) RPF, In the Heights - Miranda (Broadway Cast) RPF
Genre: Friends With Benefits, Multi, Questionable Coping Mechanisms, Rough Sex, Unsafe Sex, complicated adult emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-17 22:41:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10603785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singmyheart/pseuds/singmyheart
Summary: Tommy's most infuriating trait is the tendency to keep himself in check if it'll get him what he's after, that straight-faced "impress me" vibe — he'll sit patient with the thread in his hand and just tug, just pull until whoever it is unravels. It still works on Lin even though he tries to pretend it doesn't. It absolutely works on Karen, which is admittedly what's so goddamnfuckingirritating about it.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Scribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scribe/gifts).



> a spoiler-y explainer for the "unsafe sex" tag is in the endnotes, should you need it! 
> 
> the timeline here is a little handwavey, which I hope doesn't take you out of this story that otherwise definitely adheres 100% accurately to reality. yup. all of this totally happened.

 

 

Karen’s never been good at weathering awkward silences. Further, she's been worse at handling the consequences of pursuing what’s best left alone: like tonguing a cut on the roof of your mouth, she’s always had a knack for finding the tender places and digging in, and therefore making them worse (and usually only for herself, at that). Rinse, repeat.

To wit: she and Tommy are alone together in one of the common rooms at the Rodgers and she’s stuck on how _awkward_ it is. Other people keep filtering in and out but they've had a brief respite and, she'd bet, spend a full minute in silence before she cracks. “What's your deal?” she asks, flat. Drops onto the ancient, wildly uncomfortable couch beside him.

“My deal,” he repeats, in a tone she hates that she can peg as a “trying to head off a potentially uncomfortable conversation” maneuver (because she does the same goddamn thing).

“You've been all weird since the other night.”

(The other night: a dive bar, a third round of shots. The cab, stumbling down the horrible narrow deathtrap of a staircase to the door, her mouth on his neck while he fumbled for the keys.)

“Professional, you mean?” Tommy says, dry as dust.

“Exactly. You haven't called me names in, like, days. Also, Seth hasn't even tried to grab my ass, so the whole mood around here has clearly taken quite the turn.”

“Not that I can speak for Seth, but as far as the other night… you know that's not — that can't happen again.”

(Coming to in his tiny, charmless basement studio, eight inches of window high up on the far wall. Stale glass of water on the nightstand. At least she hadn’t had to go far to find her clothes — she’d been fishing one of her shoes out from under the armchair when he cleared his throat, said, “Not sneaking out on me, are you?”

She’d told herself she’d at least been intending to leave a note, cringing internally. Hadn’t really had a reason to decline his offer of coffee, and got back into bed half-dressed. Stayed long enough to drink a cup and spiral somewhat, get self-conscious. Morning after’s bad enough with strangers, let alone friends she also works with.)

“I’m aware,” she says now, nettled.

“We work together, you know, it's just not the best idea.”

“I know that.” Ugh. It's the exact same conclusion she'd come to herself, but it rankles to hear him say it like that. Like he's trying to let her down easy or something. “And it's not like we killed someone, Tommy, we slept together. You can say it.”

“Little death,” he mutters and she laughs in spite of herself, the fact that she is actually pretty annoyed.

“Why are you such an asshole? I’m agreeing with you, asshole.”

He’s saved from having to respond by the arrival of Lin, who appears in the doorway just then, as usual loudly and without warning. “I thought I heard your dulcet tones.”

“I fucking hate it when you do that,” Tommy says, resigned, having nearly jumped out of his skin.

“More than enough reason to keep doing it, I keep telling you. Honestly, it’s like you don’t even know me.” Lin comes over to join them, tucks himself into one end of the couch and settles his legs over Karen’s lap, which starts up the old dull ache in her chest. “Anyway,” and he nudges her, all conspiratorial. “Why’s he an asshole, what’s he done now?”

“Well, you two enjoy this,” Tommy says, and gets up to leave. “I’m gonna go — be somewhere else now. Carry on.”

Lin watches him go, a little bemused. “You piss in his cornflakes or something?”

“He’s always like that,” she says weakly, just hoping he’s not gonna push it.

“Whatever.” Lin shrugs, wriggles further down into the cushions, starts fidgeting with the string of his hoodie (he’s the worst person in the entire world to cuddle with because he never stops moving and he knows it and this doesn’t prevent him from doing it _all the time_ ). “You know, I think I’m still fuckin’ hungover? You guys have gotta stop letting me have tequila.”

“No one, ever, should have tequila, and we _tried,_ ” Karen protests. “Mandy tried to give you water and you called her, like, the boner killer of fun.”

“Oof. That's a new one. I should apologize, probably.”

“Definitely. Dick.”

 

*

 

The chest pains thing is really only a problem if she thinks about it too long. Generally she can exist in a kind of semi-numb, “if I ignore it, it'll go away” state of denial, which is about the closest she's going to get to sanguine acceptance. She's already tried to reason herself out of it — he's with someone else, he's kind of an asshole anyway, nobody who calls you bro on a regular basis is ever going to wake up and realize he's wildly in love with you, this is just your lizard brain being unable to differentiate between Usnavi-and-Vanessa and Lin-and-Karen — suffice to say, it hasn't worked.

Lin's oblivious, of course he is. At least, she's pretty sure he is; he's never given her reason to believe otherwise. And, that — that right there is the chest pains thing. One of several locked boxes she absolutely won't, can't allow herself to open, under any circumstances. Nope. Nothing to see here, move along.

After the other night, she’d come home and headed straight for the shower; stood there under the hot water for ages just to rid herself of the grime of the previous twelve hours and tried to parse: she's never been _attracted_ to Tommy, exactly. Not even in the “it'll never happen, but it's a nice idea” kind of way she is to Chris. She loves Tommy, and they flirt, but it's how she flirts with all her friends, which is why it works, it's safe. Or it had been. Whatever, it doesn't matter. They'd just had too much to drink (which, anyway, is basically entirely Lin's fault; as usual he'd been the pusher, sloppy and emotional) — it's never going to happen again. Not that big a deal.

She’d put up with two days’ worth of Tommy not-quite avoiding her, but just being a little stiff, a little cooler than usual, before she’d cracked. That’s what he gets for trying to be polite in a work environment.

 

*

 

There's an off day. Every one of them — save Chris, who’s on some whole other level, for some reason — eats shit at one point or another. Missing cues, blowing high notes. She’s weirdly comforted that it’s not just her, even as they all uncomfortably await judgment in the form of notes. Even Mandy, who's by all accounts an earth angel and undeserving of Tommy’s bile as a rule, catches some of it. Even Priscilla catches some of it, although his threat to recast if necessary is kind of undercut by the fact that she tells him to fuck off outta here in the world's sweetest tone and he doesn't quite manage to bite back a smile.

“Karen,” he says, fidgeting with a pen while he skims through his notes again and she waits, uneasy. “Pick a key and stay in it, maybe?” She hums an acknowledgement and doesn't look up, studying the back of the seat in front of her. “You do Champagne like that again and we're gonna have a problem. The day I watch Lin, possessed of manifold gifts as he is, have to carry you — it’s disconcerting, to say the least. Blackout, too, for that matter. You can't get lost in it.” A moment passes and she thinks he's finished, but: “Hey. Am I talking to myself, here?”

“Why are you riding me so hard?” she demands, abrupt. Hating the feeling of being called on the carpet, like having to tell the grownups she hasn't done her homework. She's never outgrown it. In her periphery she’s aware of Seth and Robin down the row, looking up, hoping for trouble.

“No harder than anyone else,” he says placidly — and it's true, which pisses her off all the more. Her big fucking mouth.

“Just think you could stand to not be such a dick about it, like, one time. For a change. Don't you get tired?” Everyone's eyes on them now, even Priscilla’s.

“Long as you keep doing act two like you did I’m gonna be a dick,” he says without missing a beat, curl of amusement at the edge of his voice. “But — you know what, fine. Karen. Please. Kindly, get your shit together.” Dripping condescension, and she digs her nails in her palms, just a spark of discomfort. Back of her neck burning. “And put your feet down. Fuck’s sake.” He turns back to address the room at large. “All of you,” and the soles of a dozen pairs of shoes hit the floor. “Well, that, and the other thing — get your collective shit together or I'm gonna rewrite this thing as a one-man show and Chris, Christopher, light of my life, jewel of the morning, will replace all of you, and I will make all of your deaths look like grisly accidents. But you didn't hear that. Alright? Love you. Go home. Kiss your families. Stare ragefully at the dartboards you've made with my face on them.”

A flurry of movement as everyone gets up to leave, the low hum of conversation swelling up. Tommy says her name and she briefly considers acting like she hadn't heard, but Andrea had, and gives her a look. Eyebrows. “Someone's in trouble,” she whispers.

Karen rolls her eyes so hard they're in danger of falling out of her head and rolling away across the floor but she hangs back while everyone else files out. Before long it's just her and Tommy again; he takes the seat next to her and doesn't bullshit. “C’mon, Kar. I'm not just giving you a hard time.”

“Oh, you're not?” The feeling of being kept back after class is only intensifying; it makes her itchy. “Feels like it.”

“If you're taking notes so personally —"

“Everybody was off today, Tommy —"

“Yeah, and nobody else called me a dick, you'll notice.”

“Priscilla gets away with murder,” she complains. Whining. What is _wrong_ with her, why can’t she just shut the fuck up and apologize and go home, do better tomorrow.

“Priscilla scares the hell out of me, frankly,” he says, flat. “She's also been doing this since before you and I were born, and I'm sure you have similar abuses of power to look forward to in the future, but until then…”

“Fine.” She’s not fine and they both know it: she's still pissed, feels chastised and condescended to and neither one of them is prepared to apologize. He's waiting for her to say something further, though, ball in her court. So she reaches over and just brushes his hand with hers, on the armrest.

By some mutual silent agreement they get on the train together. His knee knocking hers, crackling tension between them, all the way to his place. Karen half-expects to see _I’m about to fuck my director_ written across her forehead when she catches sight of her reflection in the window; Tommy, for his part, seems unruffled.

She kisses him once they're in the door. Hoping he's on her frequency, looking to shut off the noise in her head, maybe hurt a little and get hurt in return. He's not, not quite — he kisses her back but he's reticent. Won't quite rise to the bait when she bites his lip, gets her nails in the back of his neck, which is infuriating.

He walks her back, his tongue in her mouth and his arm around her waist, through the messy shoebox apartment to the bed, and down. It’s like she can’t think five seconds ahead and it’s bizarre, doesn’t occur to her what he’s going to do until he does it (kiss her again, reach for her belt, his own). Almost casually he’s parrying her every small attempt to rile him up; her nails in his wrist, teeth in his chest while he rifles one-handed through the drawer of the bedside table.

Something snaps in her then and abruptly she's sick of this, this pace he’s been keeping for them both; it’s just not nearly what she's after. So she handles it herself, shoves him over onto his back and straddles him. He laughs but doesn't fight her, hands on her hips and watches her sink down onto him; they sigh in tandem. _Fuck,_ this is it, exactly what she wants: slick hot slide of his cock inside her and the sound of flesh on flesh just the right side of disgusting. Fades out a little into the easy, familiar haze of sex, skin and sweat. He reaches to thumb at her clit and she digs her nails in his shoulders, almost compulsively — and that draws him out. Guard down, finally, and he leans up to kiss her, hand on the back of her neck to yank her down to meet him. Panting, more sharing air than a real kiss. She decides for no reason she can name but is probably just competitiveness that he's going first, clenches around him and goes a little harder, lets slip a moan that's _maybe_ not entirely genuine. She's weirdly satisfied when it works and he loses it, breathes _fuck_ and pushes up into her and comes.

There's a moment, after he gets rid of the condom (dropped somewhere on the mess of the floor, which is gross, if predictable) that she thinks he might leave her hanging (also gross, and not unprecedented, unfortunately). But he murmurs, “c’mere,” and kisses her. Right back to that slow measured thing: walls bricked back up. He reaches down to just skim over her cunt and she’s _close,_ even that is almost too much, not that he goes right for her clit; god, he's teasing now. Just the pads of his fingers light on her lips for _ages_ before he concedes to the impatient rock of her hips and presses inside her. She's always thought this underrated, known too many guys who couldn’t conceive of sex without putting their dicks in something and _fuck_ if he isn't goddamn good at it.

“Yeah?” he mumbles against her mouth and grins when she curses, kisses her once more, languid. This, this isn't what she'd wanted, a far cry from the good rough fuck she'd been cruising for. But she'll take it, apparently, it's not like she can deny it's working for her, this slow-burn torture of his kisses and his hand insistent on her. She's still got her shirt on and she's clutching at him now, which is kind of mortifying in addition to the way she's pushing up into his fingers. Fucking Christ. Doesn't matter, she's _right_ there — balanced right on the knife's edge for a few long delicious agonizing seconds and then she tips over, hard. Noise choked off in her throat, arching up, stars bursting behind her eyelids, the whole nine. He keeps at her through it until she falls back kind of suddenly, hits the mattress.

It's quiet, for a time. This is what it takes to get him to shut up, she thinks, and laughs. He looks at her inquisitively but doesn't ask.

 

*

 

So she's sleeping with Tommy. That's happening.

They go home together on the days she can’t seem to sit still, too big for her skin. They don’t talk about it, so she doesn’t entirely know what the draw is for him — for her, it’s probably a distraction. A way to try and fill the stark, yawning gap in her torso, dull the gnawing ache and drive Lin out of her head for an hour at a time. She feels kind of guilty about it but it’s never entirely successful, no matter how good and rough and bruising it is, which she probably deserves.

They don’t talk about it. Tommy, when he’s at the theater, tends to hang around the edges, generally prefers not to get caught up in the middle of things, doesn’t get pulled in to the endless ebb and flow of flirting and stupid jokes like everyone else does. He talks to her at work about work but beyond that it’s crickets, really; for the most part their conversations are conducted in finger-shaped bruises and  _what are you doing_ texts.

(They don't talk about the time she shows up to his place when her head is a mess, can't hear herself think. Nearly pleading with him to just make it quiet for a while, give her something she doesn't have to consider to death. And he does, in the form of a tie wound around her wrists, another over her eyes, the cheap carpet of his living room scratchy under her knees. They don't do anything like it again.)

(They don't talk about the time he asks her to hit him and she just _does,_ unthinkingly. The way he shudders and arches underneath her, her palm stinging and his cheek flushing red.)

(Or the time she wakes late on a weekend morning from a confusing, vivid tangle of dreams; the stage of the Rodgers, Lin and his mouth and his hands. After a guilty, frustrating few minutes of trying to get off and it just not happening she texts Tommy. _you busy_

_not particularly, why_

_want you to fuck me_

_way to mince words. half an hour_

_gonna get started without you_

_please do_

He doesn't waste time when he shows up, presses her back against the wall in the hallway and goes to his knees. Damn good at that, too. She pulls him into bed and he doesn't tease, just fucks her slow and deep and unbelievably good.)

 

*

 

Lin badgers everyone into going out again, not just drinks but dinner, a real meal at an actual sit-down restaurant. Most of the work crowd, the FLS guys, friends and coworkers of Vanessa’s that Karen's never met. It's loud and rowdy and it's good, as long as she doesn't look at the other end of the room; Lin leaning in to talk low in Vanessa’s ear, the way her face scrunches up as she laughs. Karen sandwiches herself firmly between Mandy and Olga and doesn't think about the way Lin and Vanessa fuck, the kind of shit he might be saying to her, how this whole... _thing_ might be even fractionally easier if Karen could bring herself to hate her. The whiskey doesn't help but it doesn't exactly hurt, either.

Lin stands up during dessert. Runs a hand nervously through his hair, and gestures everyone quiet. He's tipsy, eyes bright. “V and I have news,” he says, and in the few seconds of silent loaded anticipation that follow Karen's stomach drops, sick thrill. Sure she knows what's coming, and: “We're engaged. We're getting married.”

The table erupts into a wave of noise, cheers and laughter. Lin and Vanessa make the rounds to hug and shake hands and relate the story, show off the ring, graciously accept everyone's well wishes. Karen hugs them both and her ears are ringing; she doesn’t quite register what Lin's saying even as she's watching his mouth move. It's hot in here, suddenly, claustrophobic.

She extricates herself from the crush to make her way up to the bar and order a shot, and another, and once the initial chaos has simmered down some she ends up outside. Standing in the narrow brick-walled alley to split a joint and shoot the shit with Bill and Lac. The voice in her head telling her not to be a fucking idiot is resigned, weary. Too late. It’s kind of cold after the heat inside and before long she’s swimming, unsteady.

Light and noise spilling out of the side door and here's Tommy, and Lin too. He catches her as she leans into him, and he's laughing at her, how obviously wasted she is. Whatever. He's warm and she doesn't have it in her to argue. Fuck him, anyway, what does he know, he's getting married. “What the fuck, Kar,” Lin says, and she realizes she's saying it out loud, albeit kind of into his shoulder. Pressed against him harder than she'd thought, way off-kilter, he’s basically holding her up now. Hears Bill say _what_ as if from far away and it clicks in one horrifying moment of clarity that she's a lot more fucked up than she'd thought, than she has any right to be right now. On cue Lin says, “she's trashed,” and now they're talking about what to do with her —

“I'm fine,” she protests, “I'm fine.” They're not listening. Lin passes her off to Tommy and she's really fucking annoyed that she doesn't get a say here but Lin's saying _love you dude thanks for coming_ —

The train to Tommy's seems to take forever and no time at all. It's all a blur, the light in his matchbox bathroom too bright and the tile floor cool underneath her; he holds her hair back while she heaves —

They’re in his bed again and, okay, this, she can handle. But he stops her, easily. “Uh, nope,” he’s saying, “not tonight.” Sits up with her while she downs a glass of water and fuck, she feels awful, that “wish I were sober” regret already setting in. Room dark and spinning as she settles down; she doesn’t even know what she’s saying, mumbling into his shirt, but he just says _I know, I know —_

 

Waking up registers instantly as a mistake. A “why is my head still attached to my body” kind of mistake. Tommy’s quiet, offers her water and aspirin, coffee and toast. The night coming back to her in bits and pieces. “Was it that bad?” she asks, wincing. A croak. “Feel free to lie as blatantly as necessary.”

“Not that bad,” Tommy says, rocks a hand back and forth. “If we leave aside the vomiting, the hell of a tab you racked up, the verbal abuse, and the fact that you, like, tried to shove your hand down my pants and _missed,_ then, no. Not that bad.”

“God.” She groans, lays a hand over her eyes. Head pounding. “Fuck, dude, I’m sorry. That’s — mortifying.”

“Just don’t make a habit of it, maybe.” It’s not quite amnesty but he’s not pissed at her, at least.

“I probably have a few more apologies to make, don’t I?”

“Couldn’t hurt. I think Lin paid your tab, so.” Lin — fuck. A long moment. “You remember what you said to him?”

“Uh, I remember the gist. I guess.”

When she looks over at him he looks away from her and back. Picking absently at a loose thread on the edge of the sheet. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you.”

She’s completely thrown by the question, doesn’t even think to lie or deny it. “Kind of. I guess.” Tommy nods like he’d been expecting that, which gets her back up in an instant. “Doesn’t matter, does it? This —” She gestures between the two of them, again talking without knowing what she’s trying to say. “It’s kind of separate, from that? It’s not…” That’s not _strictly_ true, is it, but he’s not arguing with her, doesn’t look at all upset, he hadn’t asked for an explanation — oh. Oh. “You’re in love with him.”

“Don’t remind me,” he mutters, looking pained.

She _really_ doesn’t know what to do with this. “I’m not prepared, for — I need bacon. Caffeine. A lobotomy.”

“Prepared for what?” he asks, mild. “We don’t need to _discuss_ it, Kar. Doesn’t really change anything for me.”

She’s kind of relieved, kind of confused; she doesn’t want to _discuss_ anything either. “Kind of feels like a hole in your stomach, right?”

His face twitches, just the suggestion of a smile. “More like a screwdriver between the eyes, you know.”

And her phone buzzes from somewhere on the bedside table. “Speak of the devil…” A text from Lin: _mornign sunshine!!!! did you die_

_no, unfortunately_

Work is horrible, for several obvious reasons. “If it isn’t the loveliest girl in the place,” Lin crows when he sees her. “You look like a fucking corpse.”

“I should be so lucky,” Karen complains, and flops unceremoniously into Mandy’s lap. She’s not in the fucking mood for this, the rehashing, the “har har didn’t Karen make an idiot of herself last night” routine.

“That’s what makeup’s for, I guess? Honestly, I’m frankly impressed that you’re upright. Not least ‘cause I’ve spent many a drunken night on Kail’s couch myself, and it’s —”

“Lin-Manuel,” Karen says from behind her hands, flat. “Would you shut the fuck up.” It comes out raw and definitive and not really a joke.

The moment stretches on; the window for her to pass it off as ribbing or apologize slams closed. He doesn’t say anything and neither does she and the low hum of conversation resumes, moving on. Mandy settles a hand in Karen’s hair and gives her a twitch of the eyebrows, like, _what was that?_ But Karen shakes her head just slightly, _nothing, not now_.

She tries to shake it off, pick out a voice that isn’t Lin’s and follow the thread of at least one of several overlapping discussions swirling around the room, even if she won’t contribute. But she can’t, hooked instead on the sudden crystal-clear thought that she has to pull back. Distance herself from Lin at least a little, for her own sake. It’ll hurt like hell but it’ll be worse if she doesn’t, which is one of those uncomfortable moments of self-awareness she tries to avoid as much as possible.

 

*

 

The show is fine; it’s work and that’s always been the port in the storm. Whatever else she has going on she’s always been able to flip the switch, put on someone else’s skin and make nothing else matter for a while.

(That’s not _entirely_ true. A couple of nights Lin plays up the Champagne kiss, hotter than usual, more confident. Hot tug low in her stomach at that. She and her lizard brain are going to need to have words, evidently.)

Beyond that it’s almost easy, after all, not so much a cleaving as a drifting. Simple, to turn down his invitations to go out, not get caught up in the stupid flirty thing he pulls with anyone who comes within ten feet of him. The boys start getting locker-room-y and she excuses herself, amid Seth’s protests: “C’mon, Olivo, aren’t you basically a dude?” She doesn’t look to see if Lin’s watching her go.

She heads off to find Mandy and sit in relative quiet for a while, have some tea and a conversation with people who aren’t trying to one-up each other (that’s uncharitable, but also she doesn’t care). “Fuck men,” she declares, entirely too loudly.

“Mhm,” Mandy agrees without looking up from her magazine.

 

*

 

Makeup gives Lin hell in a handbasket once for showing up with a dark, livid bruise on the side of his neck. Karen’s taken to hearing a dull sort of static whenever he’s speaking in her vicinity lately and not directly to her, but she catches him blushing and mumbling something about “since the engagement” and thereby charming everyone out of being annoyed with him.

(Later that night, static roaring in her ears and Tommy panting underneath her; he twitches away from her teeth in his throat at first but he gets her back, anyway. Perfectly formed bright red imprints of his hand across her ass and she can’t sit for most of the next day.)

 

*

 

Perversely, she’s started thinking of Lin like an absent third, which is maybe why this drifting doesn’t hurt as much as she thinks it should. He hasn’t gone anywhere, just made himself at home in the corner of the room. She dreams of him surveying them critically and offering notes, detached, off to one side in Tommy’s tiny dark bedroom or watching her get on her knees in front of the couch. Wakes aching and frustrated and confused.

She calls Tommy once, when this happens, counting on him keeping weird hours like every other director and actor she knows. Sure enough, he sounds unfazed to hear from her. Asks her what she’d been dreaming of before she woke and she freezes with Lin’s name bitter on her tongue. Closest they’ve come to acknowledging it, him, and her silence is answer enough. An ocean of quiet between them and then Tommy talks her through an orgasm in his measured way, and another. At first when she asks if he’s got a hand on himself he says no but he joins her before much longer, follows her over the edge.

 

*

 

Been a long day and Karen’s been kind of on fire for most of it. Couldn’t say why, not that it matters when they were always going to end up like this: tangle of sweat and spit and the scent of sex heavy in the tiny room. Pretty sure she’s seeing the edge of the universe even as she kind of can’t breathe like this with her ankles hooked over his shoulders; he’s in her impossibly deep and going hard enough that she’s gonna be sore later, which is fine, just fucking fine. All the same she tells him _harder_ and rakes her nails down his back, no warning, just to spur him on; he breathes out a curse, _bitch_ maybe, and does it, _fuck._ Fire licking along her insides and he kisses her sloppy, knocking teeth, taste of her cunt still thick in his mouth. The headboard jars against the wall and she thinks wildly that she’s just glad he doesn’t have neighbors, and she’s laughing as she comes. Crashing waves, stars, perfect silence. Hazy but raw and oversensitive she feels him lose it, seconds later.

He gets off of her and her feet hit the mattress again; he’s saying something but it doesn’t register. Every inch of her sweat-drenched and shaky in a way that’s not entirely pleasant.

“Kar,” he says, kind of sharply, and that gets her attention. “It broke. I’m — fuck.”

“It broke,” she repeats. For half a second it’s meaningless, just sounds to which she can’t assign significance, and then it clicks. “Fuck. _Fuck._ You’re joking.”

“Yeah, thought this’d be a good time for that. Glad you agree.”

“God, shut up,” she snaps reflexively and instantly feels a little guilty at the look on his face. He’s freaking the fuck out, which is fair; so is she. Tries to breathe, fight off the panic beginning to hook itself in her throat. Okay. There are steps, here. Things they need to be doing. They have options. One thing at a time, Karen.

 

*

 

She keeps telling herself that, one thing at a time, trying to berate herself into doing literally anything. But then it’s been nearly two weeks and she’s screening Tommy’s calls, not giving him a chance to pull her aside at work. Acutely aware of how horrible she’s being, but that knowledge does nothing to lift the fog she’s in, the storm cloud over her head. Given how she’s been dealing (not dealing) with the Lin situation, she’s no stranger to the _if I ignore it, it’ll go away_ thing — but it’s shifted now, into the childish half-formed idea that she can delay the inevitable. Walking around with her ears ringing. She’s too out of it to even commit to avoiding Lin quite as much, with all her limited energy apparently going toward ignoring Tommy instead.

Everybody can tell. Even her roommate, who works bizarre hours and whom she never sees and barely knows, can tell, on the one occasion they cross paths. A five-minute conversation in the kitchen and the next night she comes home to find chocolate in the fridge, the fancy dark one with sea salt she can only justify as an indulgence, with a K scrawled on the label.

Mandy and Andrea corner her once for what might be an attempt at a good cop-bad cop routine. It’s mercifully abandoned once they realize she’s on another planet, however, and they hug her instead. Quietly assure her they’re here if she needs anything, which is — well. She might have preferred the interrogation.

 

*

 

She and Lin end up alone together at work, somehow, because this is just what her life is like now. Fuck it, she thinks, unable to muster the brainpower for even a poor excuse. She can’t possibly feel any worse than she does at the moment, so what harm can it do to spend a few minutes alone with him.

The only explanation she can think of for the fact that they’re on the couch now is that she blacked out briefly at some point. Worse even than that, she’s got her head in his lap, one of his hands in her hair, the other texting, seemingly endlessly. It’s been a long time since they’ve touched like this, just been close. The gnawing sort of void in her torso seems to have been (temporarily) replaced by the low ebb of panic she’s been carrying around, barely keeping at bay for the last few weeks. “Starting to think you’re avoiding me,” Lin ventures into the quiet, mildly.

“I’ve been busy,” she offers and immediately wishes she hadn’t.

“Wanna talk?”

“No,” she mumbles into the seam of his worn jeans. And fuck him, she thinks, petulant and resentful, he’s just going to pick and drag it out of her anyway, before she realizes he’s not doing that and she’s just being a bitch.

“Okay,” he murmurs. Fingertips light at her hairline.

Silence for another minute or two, or ten. He starts to ask if she wants to go get something to eat at the same time she says, “I’m late.”

“What?”

God _damn_ it. “I might be pregnant.”

Soft thud somewhere above her head as his phone hits the cushion and he whistles, low. Knows this isn’t good news. “Well, fuck.”

“Yeah.” Dragging the words out by her fingernails. “There was… a mishap. And I haven’t, you know. Found out. One way or another. So.”

“Putting it off,” he observes, and she’s comforted by the flare of annoyance that provokes, that she’s still capable of feeling it in his direction, or at all. Clears his throat. “Who’s the guy? Did I know you were — seeing someone?”

“I’m not, really? It’s — doesn’t matter.” Little minnow of guilt, there. Wouldn’t be the end of the world, if Lin knew… no. Not the time.

The journey from the theater to the Duane Reade up the block to the Starbucks across from it is a blur; she couldn’t pick either cashier out of a lineup. Like hell she’s doing this at the theater, but this is awful in its own way, Lin hovering outside the bathroom door.

Longest three minutes of her life, shut in that stall, staring at her watch. Long enough to spiral: she hasn’t let herself think about it — locked box — but. She could do worse than Tommy, if she _is —_ if she is. He might be kind of an asshole and have all the emotional capacity of the espresso she’d nervously downed a few minutes ago, but she could do worse.

Lin’s waiting; his head snaps up the second he hears the door open. “False alarm,” she says, laughs so she doesn’t cry. His expression melts from concern into relief in response to whatever her own face is doing, and he jars the table standing up to hug her. She has a brief moment of instinctive resistance before she caves, folds into his arms and cries anyway. Lets herself have this, for a minute. She’s so fucking tired of keeping him at arm’s length. It’ll hurt worse later, undoubtedly ( _worse,_ right), but for now she’ll permit it.

 

*

 

Tommy’s actually waiting in the hall outside her door when she gets home the next night, which is a surprise, and less than ideal. “Hey.”

“Uh, hi,” she says, nudging him aside so she can unlock the door; he at least waits until they're inside before he starts going.

“Karen, what the _fuck_ is going on.” She's never seen him like this, tense and agitated. Not raising his voice but about as close as he'll get (he has a thing about not doing that, at work and, evidently, outside of work). “I'm going out of my mind here, and you've just been stonewalling me for, fuck, weeks now — “

“I'm not pregnant.”

He blinks at her. “Oh.” Chews on it for a second. “Well. That's.” She gestures for him to sit at the weathered kitchen table and puts coffee on; it's the least she can do. “That's… good news, then.”

“Understatement.”

“No kidding.” Relief etched in every line of his face (Lin, outside the bathroom in a midtown Starbucks, his arms around her and his t-shirt going damp under her cheek). He looks like shit, now that she's looking, like he's had a few sleepless nights recently. “Fuck,” he says, and sighs, deep. Accepts the mug she passes to him after another few minutes of heavy silence, stares into the surface of the coffee like he's trying to divine the future in it.

It spikes up again unchecked, her pathological fucking inability to let sleeping dogs lie, to keep her mouth shut when the alternative is asking questions whose answers she's probably better off without. As self-destructive habits go it could be worse. Maybe. “What would you have done? If we — if I was.”

“What kind of a fucking question is that, Kar. Come on.” Comes out heavy and flat; she wonders if this'll be it, the vanishingly rare concession to actual anger that runs so antithetical to his natural state, the bone-dry defensive thing. She almost wants that, spoiling for a fight, something genuine for once, but no dice: he sighs, wind gone from his sails as quickly as it had come. Seems to actually shrink a little, though it’s probably just that ramrod tension starting to melt out. “I don’t know,” he admits. “If that's not what you want me to say, if you're looking for — well. I don't know what I'd have done. I hadn't thought that far.”

Karen's almost relieved; it's what she'd have said if he'd asked, more or less. “Okay,” she says. And she's waiting for the sense of finality to dawn, of something resolved. The silence goes on and it doesn't come, no ending, just her and Tommy in her kitchen drinking Folgers from mismatched mugs. The faucet dripping steady.

She's not sure who kisses whom or why. They fall back into it easily enough, the rhythm familiar by now. Lin in the corner again. Not the same and they both know it. Hits the cracked linoleum floor on her knees, and he spreads her out on the table to return the favor. They don't talk much, don't fuck, don't make it to the bedroom and she wonders if he's kind of spooked like she is, gun-shy. When she comes it's hard and quietly, skin catching on the wood, his hands wrapped around her thighs tightly enough to bruise.

 

*

 

Karen has to read the announcement twice before it registers properly. Hasn't bothered to get out of bed when she texts him, still blinking sleep from her eyes. _so are you gonna let me audition for angelica or what_

_New phone, who is this_

_barbra streisand_ _  
_ _i'm gunning for that second egot_

 _I'm coming out with Lin and Lac and some others in a few weeks_ _  
_ _see you soon, Babs_

 

*

 

She blows the audition out the water, thanks very much. Lin looking every inch in awe of her as he had almost a decade ago, when he was a skinny wide-eyed kid with a handful of catchy songs and a dream. She had read it then as unipolar, naked admiration, thought probably he just hadn't learned the value of a poker face yet; she knows better now. Lin's as given to an actor's dramatic garbage as the rest of them but he's also working an angle or ten at least thirty percent of the time. Still that skinny kid, for the most part.

Tommy, too, is much the same: she catches pretty quick that he hasn't dropped his most infuriating trait, which is the tendency to keep himself in check if it'll get him what he's after. Not that anybody could call him effusive at the best of times: he seems to live firmly between emotional extremes, always; might drift toward one end or the other without ever quite reaching it. But he's only withholding if he thinks it'll draw better work out of somebody, that straight-faced "impress me" vibe — he'll sit patient with the thread in his hand and just tug, just pull until whoever it is unravels. It doesn't work on Chris anymore, if it ever did. Still works on Lin even though he tries to pretend it doesn't. It absolutely works on Karen, which is admittedly what's so goddamn _fucking_ irritating about it. Oldest trick in the book. Older even than the book. Written on a cave wall somewhere, inscribed on a stone tablet.  
  
She hadn't known that then, her first round of auditions for Heights. Lin looking so knocked out by her and Tommy had kept stone: he'd trusted that Lin would upstage him enough that he could crack and it wouldn't matter, but he hadn't slipped up an inch.

She hadn't known it then but she knows it now, that he understands implicitly the value of being the guy your eyes skip over on the way to someone else, of saving his voice when everyone else is shouting themselves hoarse. If Karen wanted to be cynical she could think of him as scheming too, wheels turning just more quietly than Lin's, like if Lin's calculating there hasn’t been a word invented for what Tommy is yet — but she's not cynical by nature and she doesn't think that's it. It's almost the opposite, actually, which is so touchy-feely sappy Hallmark that it makes her stomach twist to think about it: it's the simple fact that he _cares_ so fucking much. That he just wants to do good work and he knows where to fit himself to make it happen. Pushing everyone else in the room toward promise by degrees.

All this to say, the audition goes well.

 

*

 

Tommy's got a place here in Chicago, she learns, over dinner with him and Lin. It's just really fucking nice to see them both, in the uncomplicated way she couldn't have imagined that summer, all those years ago. They give each other shit and don't talk about Hamilton and it's good.

They head back to Tommy's for a nightcap, a condo he's sharing with Lin for the moment and that they haven't quite managed to make feel welcoming yet. Lin begs off early to call Vanessa before he heads to bed, steadfastly ignoring the insinuating eyebrows Tommy and Karen give him in response to that statement. “Fuck off. Love you,” he says, phone in the crook of his shoulder while he makes a heart with his fingers and points it at them. “Oh, hi, baby.”

“Hi, baby,” Karen coos loudly enough for Vanessa to hear.

“She's drunk, ignore her,” Lin informs Vanessa (and he's full of shit, none of them are even really tipsy).

“I am not —”

“She says hi, lover.” Lin sighs. “Get your own wife, K. God damn.” Cheerfully he flips them off and disappears down the hall.

“I can't believe he still doesn't think your lesbian jokes are funny,” Tommy says, shakes his head.

“I _know._ You'd think he'd be used to it by now. He's so fragile.”

“Actors.”

“We're a delicate bunch.” She nudges his knee with hers, and he nudges her back. “It's good to see you, dude,” she says, truthfully.

“You, too,” he tells her, not a trace of the deflecting thing, the discomfort, that sentiment might once have provoked. Looking down at the glass in his hand, the whiskey in it gleaming in the low light. Doesn't know what makes her do it but it's the easiest thing in the world to tip his chin up and kiss him, friendly. Light and brief and fairly chaste.

When she draws back he just — grabs her wrist, gently. The question in the arch of his brow, half a challenge. Tilts his head a little but he waits, waits for her to meet him halfway, and as she catches his mouth again she has the half-baked thought that he’s playing chicken. Of course he is. He starts to open up a little after a while, let it get heavy; always did take him a minute to let his guard down. The hand on her wrist moving to slide into her hair.

It keeps being easy when they sprawl out there on the couch, and eventually meander down the hall and into bed. Keeps being easy as they're laughing about trying not to wake Lin, who's almost definitely fallen asleep with his headphones on again. Keeps being easy, a world apart from the last time they’d done this, or the first time, guarded and adrift as they both were. Familiar and not. Still a little competitive and she still runs her mouth the whole time and he still touches her deliberately, never like she's precious or fragile.

Afterward, they lie there for a while, a silence that feels more comfortable than awkward (and Lin's given no indication of having heard, so there's that, she thinks, giggling). Tommy turns on his side to face her, props himself up on an elbow and fits his palm over the curve of her ribs. “You look good, kid.”

“I know,” she says, instead of echoing the sentiment, and he rolls his eyes. He does look good, though; she's only seen him a couple of times since she'd left New York and he seems different, softer somehow, more relaxed. Or maybe it's her. Either way it's not like she entirely regrets leaving New York, if this is what she gets for doing so.

“Y’know,” he says, “I’m not saying this and it's definitely untrue and unconfirmed, and if I _were_ saying it I’d pick a better time, but. There's a _distinct_ possibility that you will, in the very near future, hear a certain piece of casting news that oughta make you pretty happy. Maybe. Allegedly.”

“Did you get Esparza for Burr, then? My dreams are prophetic, I keep telling you.”

“Yes,” he says, stone-faced.

“Seriously, though, like that dude’s Room Where It Happens wouldn't be a legit fire hazard. Right?”

“Kar,” he says, like, _come on._ Catches her hand and drops a kiss on the inside of her wrist.

Giddy warm thrill low in her stomach, the kind of satisfaction that comes from something hard-won. This is mine; I did that. “I _knew_ sleeping with you was gonna pay off eventually.”

“Mm. So you've been playing a long game. I respect that.”

“You're goddamn right,” she says, and he's laughing as she rolls over on him, cages his hips between her knees.

“Jesus, can't I have like, ten minutes? A Red Bull?” He's smiling, though.

“Ten minutes, huh,” she says, solemn. “How do you plan to kill that much time. Scrabble, I assume.”

“Get up here and find out,” he says, because he's ridiculous, and tips his chin a little. Hand on the back of her thigh.

(They don't clock it or anything, but it's _probably_ longer than ten minutes.)

 

*

 

Lin doesn’t bat an eyelash at the sight of her in Tommy’s ancient Wes Cardinals shirt and nothing else in the morning. This might have more to do with the fact that he’s not really a person before coffee than anything else and they’re probably in for an earful later when it clicks for him, but whatever, that’s later. Now, now’s Sly Stone on the radio, floating a little staticky across the room; bacon grease on her fingertips and a pleasant ache in her calves from last night. She half-listens to them bicker companionably over breakfast, for a while.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> re: the "unsafe sex" tag: there's a pregnancy scare in the latter half of the story, care of a condom breaking; I just didn't want to #spoilers by using the extant "pregnancy scare" tag. 
> 
> title from "Useless Desires" by Patty Griffin. 
> 
> this was written for Scribe (thanks again!!) for the April round of Fight Back Fic Auction; tell yr friends.
> 
> comments fuel me. you know where I am.


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